Uploaded October 2017 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna (1966)
The Stuttgart Schola Cantorum, Clytus Gottwald
2001: A Space Odyssey is a soundtrack album to the film of the same name, released in 1968. The soundtrack is known for its use of many classical and orchestral pieces, and credited for giving many classical pieces resurgences in popularity, such as Johann Strauss II's 1866 Blue Danube Waltz and Richard Strauss' symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra (inspired by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche). The soundtrack includes excerpts from four of Ligeti pieces: Atmosphères, Lux Aeterna, Requiem and Aventures
In addition to the majestic yet fairly traditional compositions by the two Strausses and Aram Khachaturian, Kubrick used the highly modernistic compositions by György Ligeti which employ micropolyphony, the use of sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly over time. This technique was pioneered in Atmosphères, the only Ligeti piece heard in its entirety in the film. Ligeti admired Kubrick's film, but in addition to being irritated by Kubrick's failure to obtain permission directly from him, he was offended that his music was used in a film soundtrack shared by composers Johann and Richard Strauss.
The Richard and Johann Strauss pieces and György Ligeti's Requiem (the Kyrie section) act as recurring leitmotifs in the film's storyline. The Requiem is heard three times, all of them during appearances of the monolith. The first is its encounter with apes just before the Zarathustra-accompanied ape discovery of the tool. The second is the monolith's discovery on the Moon, and the third is Bowman's approach to it around Jupiter just before he enters the Star Gate. This last sequence with the Requiem has much more movement in it than the first two, and it transitions directly into the music from Atmosphères which is heard when Bowman actually enters the Star Gate. No music is heard during the monolith's much briefer final appearance in Dave Bowman's celestial bedroom which immediately precedes the Zarathustra-accompanied transformation of Bowman into the Star-Child. A shorter excerpt from Atmosphères is heard during the pre-credits prelude and film intermission, which are not in all copies of the film. Other music used is Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and an electronically altered form of his Aventures, the last of which was so used without Ligeti's permission and is not listed in the film's credits. Lux Aeterna is heard in the moon-bus scene en route to the Tycho monolith.
Video created with Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen, OpenShot, Sound Converter and Audacity on a Debian 8 Jessie Linux System.
György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna (1966)
The Stuttgart Schola Cantorum, Clytus Gottwald
2001: A Space Odyssey is a soundtrack album to the film of the same name, released in 1968. The soundtrack is known for its use of many classical and orchestral pieces, and credited for giving many classical pieces resurgences in popularity, such as Johann Strauss II's 1866 Blue Danube Waltz and Richard Strauss' symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra (inspired by the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche). The soundtrack includes excerpts from four of Ligeti pieces: Atmosphères, Lux Aeterna, Requiem and Aventures
In addition to the majestic yet fairly traditional compositions by the two Strausses and Aram Khachaturian, Kubrick used the highly modernistic compositions by György Ligeti which employ micropolyphony, the use of sustained dissonant chords that shift slowly over time. This technique was pioneered in Atmosphères, the only Ligeti piece heard in its entirety in the film. Ligeti admired Kubrick's film, but in addition to being irritated by Kubrick's failure to obtain permission directly from him, he was offended that his music was used in a film soundtrack shared by composers Johann and Richard Strauss.
The Richard and Johann Strauss pieces and György Ligeti's Requiem (the Kyrie section) act as recurring leitmotifs in the film's storyline. The Requiem is heard three times, all of them during appearances of the monolith. The first is its encounter with apes just before the Zarathustra-accompanied ape discovery of the tool. The second is the monolith's discovery on the Moon, and the third is Bowman's approach to it around Jupiter just before he enters the Star Gate. This last sequence with the Requiem has much more movement in it than the first two, and it transitions directly into the music from Atmosphères which is heard when Bowman actually enters the Star Gate. No music is heard during the monolith's much briefer final appearance in Dave Bowman's celestial bedroom which immediately precedes the Zarathustra-accompanied transformation of Bowman into the Star-Child. A shorter excerpt from Atmosphères is heard during the pre-credits prelude and film intermission, which are not in all copies of the film. Other music used is Ligeti's Lux Aeterna and an electronically altered form of his Aventures, the last of which was so used without Ligeti's permission and is not listed in the film's credits. Lux Aeterna is heard in the moon-bus scene en route to the Tycho monolith.
Video created with Sonic Visualizer, vokoscreen, OpenShot, Sound Converter and Audacity on a Debian 8 Jessie Linux System.
![Robert Normandeau - Venture (1998) [2/2]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jN0E2Kw1ZN4/mqdefault.jpg "Robert Normandeau - Venture (1998) [2/2]
Composer: Robert Normandeau
Commission: Codes daccès, with support from the CCA , Musiques & Recherches
Premiere: February 28, 1996, Échange Québec-Belgique, Lorchestre de haut-parleurs 2, Agora de la danse (Montréal, Québec)
To Catherine Béchard
The title refers to the 1960s musical group The Ventures (theirs was the first stereo album in my small but growing record collection) but also to all of the progressive rock music of that decade and the one that followed. It is exclusively made up of fragments of that music. These are used not as quotations but rather as the sonic archetypes that an entire generation of composers, my generation, was listening to as it was growing up. It was while I was working on Venture that I understood something about the origins of my compositions during that period. To this music I have added quotations from the sixteen movements of Mussorgskys Pictures at an Exhibition, which became a cult classic when Emerson, Lake & Palmer released a reworking of it in the mid-70s. This was the work that enabled me to move from rock to classical music.
Venture is made up of six movements that refer to different states of existence: Innocence, Stabilité [Stability], Tension, Délire [Frenzy], Violence, Sérénité [Serenity], and preceded by an Introduction. These are punctuated by variations on an ever-present movement, Tunnel (a metaphor for the transition between these states) which runs through the work.
[English translation: Tom Carter]
Venture was realized between 1996 and 98 in the composers studio and at the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons (Belgium). It was mixed at the studio of Queens University in Belfast (Northern Ireland, UK). Thanks to Todor Todoroff and Michael Alcorn. The work was commissioned by Codes daccès (Montréal) and Musiques & Recherches (Ohain, Belgium) and was made possible by the support of the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA). The first version was performed on February 28th, 1996 at Agora de la danse (Montréal) as part of the festival Échange Québec-Belgique.")
![Ludger Brümmer - Lizard Point [1997]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/k6X1EybO7SU/mqdefault.jpg "Ludger Brümmer - Lizard Point [1997]
Lizard Point was created with the help of the ZKM (Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe) using the software Genesis created by ACROE (Cadoz, Luciani, Florens) Grenoble. The piece simply relies on physical models using aspects of particle physics (see Cadoz and others ICMC 1995 Proceedings). The sounds were then further modified with conventional sample processing (CLM by William Schottstaedt).
The models are programed via patches which create vibrating structures. These structures are animated to control and understand the energy flow of the vibrating structures. The movements of single masses are recorded into a file and normalized to serve as a soundfile. The patches are created out of single masses and can be combined in a intuitive way. The masses are connected to each other via links. Masses have to be attached to fixed points. A simple vibrating structure can be understood as a guitar string with fixed attachments at both sides of the string. The string is represented by a chain of single masses. If one mass is displaced, like plugging the string, the energy of the displacement would be distributed over the whole chain of masses until it develops resonances dependent of the length of the string.
The result of this effort to model physical conditions are sounds which seem to have a natural background. Of course the natural background has a negative aspect as well: the reference to an existing physical environment decreases the excitement or the unusual aspects of a sound. Because of this other sample modification techniques are used as well to modify the sounds after the process of synthesis.
Lizard Point was created as a commission of the ICMA for performance at the ICMC 97 in Thessaloniki.
Video created with Sonic Visualizer and Vokoscreen on an OpenSUSE 12.3 Linux System.")
